


Dutchman's Prerogative

by epkitty



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007)
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-01
Updated: 2011-03-01
Packaged: 2017-10-16 00:41:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/166607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epkitty/pseuds/epkitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A few reunions and a glimpse at what comes after.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dutchman's Prerogative

**Author's Note:**

> I like to pair this story with the poem "The Flying Dutchman" by Edwin Arlington Robinson.

Jack clutched at his chest, but the dark blood spilled out like a fountain. The memory of a prophetic sentence reverberated through his head. “I guess it’s time,” he muttered as he fell backward over the rail and into the ocean.

= = = = =

“Heave! Heave! Heave!”

Strong hands pulled the body on deck.

The Captain bent over the limp form. “Well, it’s a bit sooner than I expected, Jack.” He turned the pirate onto his back.

Dark lashes fluttered. “All Hallow’s Eve, she said… She was right.”

“Tia Dalma?” the Captain asked.

“Will?” Jack wondered. “Oh, bugger. I’m dead.”

“Yes,” Will agreed, pulling him to his feet, no steadier in death than in life. “Welcome aboard the Dutchman.”

“You’re here to shepherd me on to the great beyond, then?”

Will smiled grimly. “Unless I can tempt you.”

“Tempt me to what? Serve you?” Jack asked, laughing. “I…” Those dark eyes flickered over the deck, caught sight of a sailor at the wheel, and his whole being shuddered to a halt.

The men who had pulled him aboard still stood staring at the legendary Jack Sparrow. Will barked, “Back to work! No time to stand about gaping! Make for the storm!” His gaze shifted to Jack. “We’ve more to pick up than just this one.”

“What is he doing here?” Jack asked of the steersman.

“Same as the rest,” Will said. “To work off a debt.”

“To you?”

“No,” Will scoffed. “I’m not Davy Jones. My crew work only for themselves. Go ahead. Talk to him.” He clapped Jack on the back. “I’ve an idea he’s been waiting for you.”

As if in a dream, Jack ascended the steps to the upper deck.

The familiar steersman watched him avidly. “Sparrow. A bit sooner than I expected.”

“Commodore? What are you doin’ ‘ere?”

“Don’t you know of the Dutchman, Jack?” His stormy eyes returned to the stormy sea. “Jones made a hell of what should have been an honor. Working for Turner: that’s an honor,” he said without embroidery or scorn.

“Now,” Jack drawled a smile, holding up a finger, “ _he_ said ye be working for yerselves.”

Norrington smiled, that lopsided grin of droll amusement. “He would say that. But the Dutchman isn’t just hell or a ship.” His eyes turned back to Jack. “It’s a means of transport, yes. And a waiting place.”

“Sounds like purgatory.”

“So,” Norrington said, eyes back to the sea, “What answer did you give the Captain?”

Nonplussed, Jack asked, “What was the question?”

Norrington grinned again. “Kind of him to give you a buffer. The question is this: work for him and for the ship, or sail on. To someplace else.”

“I didn’t much care for hell.”

“How do you think you’d take to sailing a ship under someone else’s command?”

“Take to it better than death,” Jack said.

Norrington smiled again.

Jack stood and watched the man steer into the stormy ocean swells, hair a whirl and eyes shining with something like fire.

Both men stood firm on the deck and leaned into the wind, grinning like wild men.

= = = = =

Will and Jack settled themselves in the Captain’s cabin.

The Articles were laid out on the desk on fading parchment, curled and torn.

Jack somberly set quill to paper, signing in an elegant scrawl. “I’m onboard with you, man.”

“Welcome to the Dutchman, Jack.”

They sat together without words then, listening to the water slapping the hull and the creak of the ancient ship around them. They kept their thoughts to themselves until finally Jack leaned forward.

Will responded in turn and they stared at one another by light of the flickering lanterns.

“What’s ‘e doin’ ‘ere? That Norrington bloke; what’s ‘e atoning for, eh?”

“All his many sins,” Will said with a bit of a smile. “He’s gone through enough to warrant his own fear of the hereafter, don’t you think?”

Jack frowned. “You said something earlier, about him waiting…”

Will only nodded and smiled.

“Don’t ye have a drop to drink about this place?”

“The dead don’t drink, Jack. Nor eat, nor sleep.” Will laughed then at the expression on Jack’s face. “But perhaps I’ll send you landward once in a while to see what you can find.”

“If ye don’t mind me askin’, what is it ye do about the place without food, drink, or sleep?”

With a smile, Will stood and led Jack out of the cabin and down to the hold. Instead of a dark, empty belly or hammock-strung berth, there was a well-lit hall crowded with tables and chairs where men rolled dice, played cards, danced, and sang to the music of hornpipes and squeezeboxes.

Jack’s eyes strayed at once to a nearby figure leaning against the hull.

“Sparrow,” Norrington greeted him. “Here to stay are you, then?”

“For as long as I like, I’ve been told.”

In response, Norrington nodded and smiled. Then the grin grew wild. He grabbed Jack’s hand and pulled him into the circle of men who danced and howled, where Jack shimmied like a fish and Norrington swung like a bird to the sounds of the trumpeting band.

Husky voices cheered them on as the men linked arms and spun round and round.

The ship creaked and the storm raged and their gazes met in the buttery light and blue smoke of the Dutchman’s belly on All Hallow’s Eve.

= = = = =

The End

**Author's Note:**

> Most of my PotC stories are set after only the first movie, which I find to be a complete story in and of itself, reinforced by the fact that it was written that way and only become a trilogy after the first movie’s profound success. While I enjoy the following films (mostly for Depp’s performance, and Jack-fricking-hot-Davenport) I find them superfluous and difficult to follow. In the end, however, things do seem to have come full circle for the characters, and I wanted to take it further here, in my own twisted mind.
> 
> I thought a lot about how life under Jones’s command would differ from Turner’s captaincy, and what it would be like to be dead, but kind of not.
> 
> Sparrow is a ridiculously difficult character to write, and I’m always very impressed when writers pull it off. I think I did a decent job with him, and while Norrington doesn’t seem quite in character, I think death changes a person, so I have my own reasoning for that.
> 
> The ending feels abrupt to me, but I knew that was the only end the story could have, so I’m satisfied with it.


End file.
